


lim f (x) = infinity, or: calculus conundrums

by izabellwit



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Mathematics, Prompt Fic, Speculation, Team Bonding, Tutoring, Volume 7 (RWBY), Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, disclaimer: I know literally nothing about math OR agriculture, featuring headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izabellwit/pseuds/izabellwit
Summary: Fic prompt: JNR homeschooling Oscar! (P.S: He’s bad at math.)
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 15
Kudos: 87





	lim f (x) = infinity, or: calculus conundrums

**Author's Note:**

> I did actual research for this fic, and it's kind of killing me. Why is farming so complicated!?? Why is math so hard!!!
> 
> Anyways, I like stats marginally more than I like calculus, but I still hate math pretty much universally. Please don't be mad. My best friend LOVES math, so know you are not alone in being disappointed in my poor math opinions.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!!

The sun is low in the sky beyond the Atlas horizon, burning the icy tundra a bright and burning gold. Beyond their dorm window, the wind howls and rattles at the glass, like a long and mournful scream as it snakes its way through Atlas Academy’s towers. Inside, however, is warm and cozy; they’ve piled all the blankets on the floor, made something of a fort to sit comfortably. Oscar wraps one duvet around his shoulders and leans back against the wall, watching bemusedly as Nora darts back and forth around their small room, throwing books and pillows at Jaune and Ren intermittently.

He has no idea what’s going on, but Oscar is sure he’ll find out eventually. He’d come back from today’s training to find all their blankets already on the floor, and Nora creating a whirlwind of pillows, and at this point he’s just content to watch the chaos. On the bright side, Jane and Ren look just as confused as he is, so at least they can all be baffled together.

At last, the blanket amalgamation is complete: Nora takes one last book off the shelf and slams down cross-legged on her pile of blankets, grinning wide. She spreads out her arms. “Ta-da!”

Oscar claps politely. Jaune tugs a blanket off his head and says, “Nora. _Please._ Please tell me what this is.”

“Blanket fort school session!” Nora lifts a finger. “Because I _refuse_ to do this the boring way.”

“Do _what?_ ”

Oscar blinks at her. Understanding clicks. “Is this about the tutoring thing?” he asks, suspicious. Ironwood had mentioned something like this a few days back, after one particular conversation about Oscar’s farm education—and he’d asked team JNR to do it. Oscar has been trying his best not to be annoyed about it ever since. As far as he’s concerned, his schooling is _fine,_ and he’s not sure how he feels about the General’s dismissal of his Aunt’s teachings.

“Nooooooooooooo,” says Nora, utterly unconvincing. 

“It’s about the tutoring thing,” Ren admits at the same time. Jaune, beside him, shrugs.

“Blanket fort was all Nora’s idea, though,” Jaune mutters, and gives Nora an exasperated look. “I mean. Really?”

“If we must do school, I _refuse_ to let it be boring!”

“I mean, I guess that makes sense…?”

Oscar shakes his head, biting back a sigh. “Look, um, I appreciate this, but…” He winces, pulling a face, and shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t need tutoring. I mean, maybe I had a few years left in homeschool, but my aunt’s already taught me everything I really need to know.” They’re staring at him. Oscar rubs at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “So… um.”

Nora is immediately aghast. She gestures again to the blanket fort, almost pleading, and when Oscar shakes his head, she slumps. “What! Really?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” 

Jaune almost seems disappointed. “So no calculus?” He sighs. “But I actually _like_ calculus! It was the one subject I was really good at…”

Nora's eyes snap to him and narrow in challenge. “Political science is way better,” she says, sagely.

“Hm. I’ve always preferred Home Economics, myself.”

“You can’t take classes in Home Ec anymore, Ren—”

Oscar blanks, mind still stuck on a few moments ago. His hand slowly falls from his hair. “Uh… calculus?”

The others cut off mid-discussion, looking back. “You know, like fn equals x equals…” Nora trails off at the look on his face. Her hands fall. “Waitaminute. You said you were done with schooling!”

Oscar thinks about this. He holds a hand. “Lemme see.”

All three of them lean in as Oscar cracks open the calculus book, looking down at glossy pages full of equations and numbers and rules. Oscar looks at the book. Team JNR looks at him. Oscar leans down closer to the book, frowning deeply. Team JNR is now leaning so far forward to stare that they’re half an inch away from all unbalancing and falling forward into an accidental dog pile.

Oscar looks up. “Oh,” he says. “This isn’t math.”

Nora falls right back on the ground. Jaune leans back the normal, non-dramatic way, and scratches at his head. “No,” he says. “This is, uh… pretty sure calculus is also math.”

Oscar frowns down at it. “But there are words in the equation…”

“Yeah, those are the… no, seriously, have you never seen calculus?”

“But I know my Aunt said—” Oscar tilts his head. “Hm. Hey, what do you use calculus for, anyway?”

“Lots of things,” Ren says, looking a bit bemused by the conversation. “Chemistry, science, equations…”

“Oh,” Oscar says. He’s quiet again, thoughtful. In the back of his mind, echoes of memories that aren’t quite his own whisper and resonate— images of a silver cane, clockwork and gears and oil, pencil dust staining their fingertips gray, circles and equations scrawled in neat hands across the paper. Oscar takes them in— and then firmly shakes the echoes away. “What about probabilities?”

“No, that’s statistics.”

“Oh, I know that one then. Good for crop estimations.” Oscar reaches out—and slowly, carefully, closes the textbook. “I… don’t need calculus.”

“I,” says Jaune.

“Um,” says Ren. 

“Hell yeah, stick it to the man!” says Nora, and she takes the textbook and throws it at the bookshelf with a grin that takes up half her face.

Oscar shrugs at the looks Jaune and Ren are giving him. “What? I don’t plan on doing chemistry or lab work anytime soon, and if I only need stats for the farm, then…” 

“You can’t just ignore a whole discipline of math!” Jaune argues, looking offended.

Ren, on the other hand, seems almost thoughtful. “What were those farm terms you mentioned before… Oscar. What’s a bushel of wheat?”

“What? You mean, in weight? About 60 pounds per bushel.”

“Barley?”

“Um… maybe 48 pounds per bushel?” 

“And when you sell them…”

“Well, um, no, it’s not that simple, you need a—” Oscar pauses, brow furrowing, unsure how to explain it. “Like, for durum! It has to have a certain grade to be sold for a certain thing, right? And for durum, the grade is figured using HVK—”

“What,” says Jaune, blankly.

“—hard vitreous kernels, it’s like— a percent measure of hardness, I guess? So we gotta figure out the grade through that, if it’s 80% HVK, or 40% HVK, and that determines its grade, and what we sell it for and for how much, you know.”

Nora and Jaune look stunned.

“Okay.” Ren nods, though he seems a bit dizzy himself. “What’s sin and cos?”

Oscar looks at him. “...What?”

“Sin and cos. Or, uh, ln?”

There’s a pause. “Bless you,” Oscar says, finally, feeling a bit helpless. He’s pretty sure those aren’t words. Those aren’t words, are they? He’s a bit afraid to ask, now.

Ren turns back to a grinning Nora and a bewildered-looking Jaune with a shrug. “I think he’s fine.”

“What!”

“I mean, I don’t remember the difference between sin and cos either.”

Jaune looks betrayed; Nora laughs. “Ren blanks through anything that isn’t Home Ec,” she explains, looking amused at Jaune’s disappointment, and her grin widens. “Don’t need calculus to cook, _so_ …”

Ren looks somewhat sheepish.

Jaune heaves a sigh. “I mean, fair…? But aw, man, calculus is the only subject I’m really good at! I was kind of looking forward to teaching it...”

Ren shakes his head, but he’s smiling. To Oscar, he says, “I don’t disagree with you, but the General did ask us to tutor you, and I’m not sure if he’ll see it the same way…”

“We don’t have to tell him anything,” Nora says, firmly.

“Nora,” Ren sighs.

Oscar hums, cutting through the argument before it can start. The memories are rising again, insistent— some past lives must have _really liked math,_ wow— but Oscar breathes in deep and remembers instead the warm tenor of his aunt’s voice, the rough feel of grain in his hand, the careful count. Oscar may be the next Oz, as people like to say, but he was always _Oscar_ first. He was a farmhand first, before all this came into his life. And… he doesn’t want to lose that. Not yet, at least. Not ever.

His aunt has taught him everything he needs to know, and for now Oscar would like to keep it that way.

So he pulls his shoulders straight and pulls himself up too, certain and sure and sticking with it. “If General Ironwood really wants me to learn calculus…” Which, _yech_ , he hopes not, that was illegible _,_ who would do that to perfectly good numbers?— “Then I’ll learn. But, um… _if_ not… then I’d rather not.” He gives Jaune an apologetic smile. “Sorry?”

“No, no, it’s fine, just bash my favorite subject, it’s fine, it’s cool, I’m cool.”

Nora cackles at him. Jaune puts his head in his hands.

“Well, if not math…” Ren hunts around the pile of textbooks scattered amongst the blankets, and picks out one with a glossy cover. “Perhaps science?” He smiles over at Nora. “We don’t want the study blanket fort to go to waste, after all.”

Nora brightens. Oscar smiles, and draws his legs closer in a crisscross, resting his hands on his ankles. “I can do science,” he agrees. “Can we start with geology?”

“Yes!” Nora throws up her hands. “I’ll get the hot cider! And snacks! And then we can _study!”_ She makes two fists and punches up like she’s trying to break the ceiling. _“BONZAI!”_

Jaune mimics her with enthusiasm; Ren with a quiet voice and a smaller smile. Oscar echoes their shout a second off-rhythm, and hesitantly bumps the fist Nora holds out his way. He has no idea why they’re so pumped about the studying thing, but it’s fine. They’re happy, they’re having fun— and at least the blanket fort is warm. 

“To the books!”

“To the books,” Oscar agrees, and when he cracks open the textbook he is smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Farming actually requires a pretty decent grasp on math, ESPECIALLY probabilities. At least, that's what all my research said. Damn if I have no idea what Oscar was saying either.
> 
> The best thing about this fic prompt was figuring out which subject everyone in team JNR likes, ahaha. My current ideas are: Jaune is passable in most subjects but an absolute WHIZ at math, calculus especially, and can and will win strategy games with one hand behind his back; Nora studies Political Science with a side of future world domination because politicians are doing it wrong; Ren passes all his classes because he feels obligated too but tbh only gives a damn about Home Ec and Nutrition classes; and Oscar is best at Literature and History. He'd be great at engineering too, because Oz Reasons, but he feels like that's cheating so he avoids it.
> 
> Those are my thoughts, anyway. What do you guys think?
> 
> [If you wanna rec this fic, you can reblog it here!!](https://izaswritings.tumblr.com/post/615756858621329408/fic-prompt-jnr-homeschooling-oscar-ps-hes-bad) Also, if you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


End file.
